Can you trust the press?

First part, the poll: If your answer to the thread question has any equivocations, any buts, or is anything other than a pure yes, your answer logically must to be no.



Second part: To help you evaluate your answer to the poll, please discuss the following...

1) Is a press corps controlled or guided by a single (generally similar) ideology or competing ideologies, a danger to a free society?

2) In your opinion, is the US press corps controlled or guided by a single (generally similar) ideology or competing ideologies?

3) If the press is controlled and/or influenced by ideologically driven activists would that be a danger to a free society?

4) In your opinion, is the press in the US controlled and/or influenced by ideologically driven activists?

5) Given that for a free society to survive, the press must be free from government control, and given that there is an ethical standard adopted by the press regarding objective neutrality, and if there is evidence in your answers above that would show a lack of compliance to that ethical standard, should the ethical standard be enforced by a third party to ensure objective neutrality to prevent political and/or ideological control of the press? And if so, who enforces the standard (not the government)?

6) Is a free press that is also free of enacted and/or enforced ethical standards of objective neutrality just another form of forced propaganda and ideological indoctrination that is as real and present of a danger to a free society as a government controlled press would be?

Final note - remember that freedom of speech and a free press do not guarantee truth and honesty. With the mean level of skill regarding critical thinking skills in the US being so obviously low, the press can create any political environment they wish to create, forming the illusion of truth around whatever they choose to describe as truth.

Beaudreaux said:

First part, the poll: If your answer to the thread question has any equivocations, any buts, or is anything other than a pure yes, your answer logically must to be no.



Second part: To help you evaluate your answer to the poll, please discuss the following...

1) Is a press corps controlled or guided by a single (generally similar) ideology or competing ideologies, a danger to a free society?

2) In your opinion, is the US press corps controlled or guided by a single (generally similar) ideology or competing ideologies?

3) If the press is controlled and/or influenced by ideologically driven activists would that be a danger to a free society?

4) In your opinion, is the press in the US controlled and/or influenced by ideologically driven activists?

5) Given that for a free society to survive, the press must be free from government control, and given that there is an ethical standard adopted by the press regarding objective neutrality, and if there is evidence in your answers above that would show a lack of compliance to that ethical standard, should the ethical standard be enforced by a third party to ensure objective neutrality to prevent political and/or ideological control of the press? And if so, who enforces the standard (not the government)?

6) Is a free press that is also free of enacted and/or enforced ethical standards of objective neutrality just another form of forced propaganda and ideological indoctrination that is as real and present of a danger to a free society as a government controlled press would be?

Final note - remember that freedom of speech and a free press do not guarantee truth and honesty. With the mean level of skill regarding critical thinking skills in the US being so obviously low, the press can create any political environment they wish to create, forming the illusion of truth around whatever they choose to describe as truth.

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I am not sure, what to make of your poll. It is trivial to say that the different papers take different views. It is also little believable that the news is "controlled" in the sense usually associated with the word. Also. I find so many contradicting opinions in the news from different sources that I would tend not to take any at face value and unchecked.

The poll should have been a simple yes or no, the qualifiers cloud the debate and in some regards ignores the history of US "press." The OP's questions then become problematic.

"1) Is a press corps controlled or guided by a single (generally similar) ideology or competing ideologies, a danger to a free society?

2) In your opinion, is the US press corps controlled or guided by a single (generally similar) ideology or competing ideologies?

3) If the press is controlled and/or influenced by ideologically driven activists would that be a danger to a free society?

4) In your opinion, is the press in the US controlled and/or influenced by ideologically driven activists?"

All of these questions ask the same thing in a different way and collide two concepts that are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

The real danger to a free society is compromising the First Amendment. "Congress shall make no law... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof... of the press." The press is made up of people and owned by private enterprise. Now that comes with consequences anyway. Primarily, that political ideologies and leanings of the members of the press will make its way into delivery of the news and commentary on the news. Secondary, that business modelling will start to influence that same delivery of the news and commentary. The "US press corps" may arguably lean more modern liberal than conservative but that should not really surprise anyone. If there is "competing ideologies" it boils down to the same ideologies that have been dividing this nation for a very long time now as those are the sources for the opinions and views that inevitably influence news delivery and commentary on the news.

Now there is a conversation we can have on corporatism of the news, and that 6 corporations own some 90%+ of the news. Which really just means the media as a business model has already gone through the same mergers and consolidations as plenty of other business models having nothing to do with the news. That also has consequence.

The problem we will run into is the idea of "doing something" about the media which inevitably means governance of the media. Historically speaking, that leads to bad things in just about every single context and example we can find.

So I am back to the real danger we face. If we determine that we do not like what we see from the media so force change to Freedom of the Press then that is no different than saying we do not like what we hear from Freedom of Speech so remove that as well. That always ends in bondage.

The problem with the US press, is that they have forgotten that they are the 5th estate. Their lack of investigative reporting and going after facts, has hurt the US journalism big time. It has become more sensationalist instead of being factual. This comes down to the all mighty profit margin that is demanded. Add to this, that there are fewer and fewer owners and they see no problem in influencing the editorial line according to their world view... and you have a press that is moving closer and closer towards Pravda type press.

For me it was 1000% clear in the lead up to the 2nd Iraq war. Press outside the US questioned the validity of the evidence constantly, where as the US media for the most part fell in line behind the Bush administration and any one questioning the White House line were basically attacked. Had the US media done its job, then there might not have been a 2nd Iraq war.

My distrust for the press has been in place for a very long time. Today, with the release of emails, that distrust has been confirmed many times over.

A state run media has been the hallmark of totalitarian regimes throughout history.

With the documented collusion, admissions of bias by journalists in Op-Eds, and the documented deceit and out of context lies they have spread this election season, it can officially be declared the 4th estate, by and large, no longer exists.

Voters should pay close attention and respond accordingly.

I don’t trust anyone so why should the Press be any different? The problem here isn’t their lack of trustworthiness, it’s the fact they were put up on a pedestal in the first place, not unlike politicians, lawyers, doctors and priests etc.

The American Press? No, absolutely not. They're News-Entertainment. It's all contrived stories to produce ratings, drama, and nonsense. There was a time when one couldn't have more than one news channel in an area, now I think most of it is controlled by a handful of people.

I am reminded of the Soviet era joke,

"There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and there is no Izvestia in Pravda" or in English "There is no truth in News, and there is no news in Truth."

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The two newspapers being named Pravda which means truth, and Izvestia which means news.

Anyone who trusts the media or thinks they have no bias is a total moron.

Beaudreaux said:

First part, the poll: If your answer to the thread question has any equivocations, any buts, or is anything other than a pure yes, your answer logically must to be no.



Second part: To help you evaluate your answer to the poll, please discuss the following...

1) Is a press corps controlled or guided by a single (generally similar) ideology or competing ideologies, a danger to a free society?

2) In your opinion, is the US press corps controlled or guided by a single (generally similar) ideology or competing ideologies?

3) If the press is controlled and/or influenced by ideologically driven activists would that be a danger to a free society?

4) In your opinion, is the press in the US controlled and/or influenced by ideologically driven activists?

5) Given that for a free society to survive, the press must be free from government control, and given that there is an ethical standard adopted by the press regarding objective neutrality, and if there is evidence in your answers above that would show a lack of compliance to that ethical standard, should the ethical standard be enforced by a third party to ensure objective neutrality to prevent political and/or ideological control of the press? And if so, who enforces the standard (not the government)?

6) Is a free press that is also free of enacted and/or enforced ethical standards of objective neutrality just another form of forced propaganda and ideological indoctrination that is as real and present of a danger to a free society as a government controlled press would be?

Final note - remember that freedom of speech and a free press do not guarantee truth and honesty. With the mean level of skill regarding critical thinking skills in the US being so obviously low, the press can create any political environment they wish to create, forming the illusion of truth around whatever they choose to describe as truth.

Click to expand...

I don't even trust mainstream anymore. Didnt vote. Would have preferred a simple yes-no. And this election cycle has taught me to not even trust my lyin' eyes. Yikes.

Green party campaign candidate Jill Stein says Hillary is a more dangerous choice than Trump. Do you hear our media spending time talking about this, or talking about the myriad of disgusting talk and actions from Hillary? Do you hear the media talking about Hillary's collusion with the DNC and at least 1 major news outlet to take down Bernie Sanders? The answer to all of those questions is No. But they are piling on Trump, and have been for months, while giving Hillary(and her husband) a pass(intentional omission of scandals).

They do this^ every day, and they've been busting their butts to take down every Republican candidate for decades! But they never seem to have a problem with big name dems who are involved with all sorts of provable corruption. That's because the journalism schools in America have become left wing indoctrination camps designed to craft students into blind ideologues of the left. These people spend their careers trying to advance what radical leftists view as a "great left wing revolution".

This is ABSOLUTELY a threat to a free, open democracy, because most msm journalists are trying their best to prevent 330 million Americans from seeing and hearing the truth about what OUR paid political officials are doing! The way the media have coddled and protected Barack Obama from legitimate criticism should disgust everyone! He has been allowed free reign to corrupt our public offices in the same way that Hillary will continue doing(with the media's graces).

I can only imagine how progressives would behave if 90+% of the msm were radical conservatives, lying to 330 million Americans daily in order to push along a "great right wing revolution". Can you imagine?? That's how ALL OF US should react to the American media, because they aren't helping anyone by deceiving everyone!

Beaudreaux said:

First part, the poll: If your answer to the thread question has any equivocations, any buts, or is anything other than a pure yes, your answer logically must to be no.



Second part: To help you evaluate your answer to the poll, please discuss the following...

1) Is a press corps controlled or guided by a single (generally similar) ideology or competing ideologies, a danger to a free society?

2) In your opinion, is the US press corps controlled or guided by a single (generally similar) ideology or competing ideologies?

3) If the press is controlled and/or influenced by ideologically driven activists would that be a danger to a free society?

4) In your opinion, is the press in the US controlled and/or influenced by ideologically driven activists?

5) Given that for a free society to survive, the press must be free from government control, and given that there is an ethical standard adopted by the press regarding objective neutrality, and if there is evidence in your answers above that would show a lack of compliance to that ethical standard, should the ethical standard be enforced by a third party to ensure objective neutrality to prevent political and/or ideological control of the press? And if so, who enforces the standard (not the government)?

6) Is a free press that is also free of enacted and/or enforced ethical standards of objective neutrality just another form of forced propaganda and ideological indoctrination that is as real and present of a danger to a free society as a government controlled press would be?

Final note - remember that freedom of speech and a free press do not guarantee truth and honesty. With the mean level of skill regarding critical thinking skills in the US being so obviously low, the press can create any political environment they wish to create, forming the illusion of truth around whatever they choose to describe as truth.

Click to expand...

I can trust the press to lie to me. At least they are consistent.

American media always was unscrupulous self centered mostly ignorant and poorly educated

I trust the big networks and the local stations to report as accurately as is possible most of the time. I still trust CNN, but in their desire to always be doing the next bang! bam! boom! thing with technology, it's just irritating.

Too many Americans have somehow come to believe that the media exists to tell them what they want to hear. Simply reporting what Trump says is now biased. Showing scientific facts is now biased. Fox News is living proof that by telling people what they want to hear on a near 24 hour basis, you can attract viewers. And I think it's telling that conservatives flock to one source in such a monolithic fashion.

This idea that the media is liberally biased is absurd. I don't remember Carter getting cut any slack from the networks. Every single day the lead story was the Iranian hostage crisis and Carter took the hit for it every single night on the news. When Clinton's Lewinsky scandal hit, it was there every single day. When the early accusations about Whitewater and all the other stuff hit, it was there every day.

The Hillary email thing: every day.

But those of us on the left don't blame the media for reporting it. We don't become outraged at ABC if they break a story on a Democrat's screwup. We blame the person who did the bad thing, not the messenger bringing us the information. Again and again, the supposed party of personal responsibility levels the blame at someone else. In this case it's the media, and poorly manufactured tales of vast conspiracy are the explanation.

I don't watch MSM, but I do sometimes read articles produced by them. I always check the links in each article so I can verify the source is legit, and if there is obvious persuasive language being used I don't read the article at all. One side or another is being pushed in the vast majority of available "news".